Machines of Influence

Here's a fascinating article on a group of potentially undiagnosed schizophrenics who meet online, believing that they are Targeted Individuals, attacked by influencing machines designed to control their minds which invoke schizophrenic-like symptoms. Yet the spread of their concepts manages to undermine the less-visible psychiatric interpretation of this phenomenon. Interestingly, the fact that these TIs can share their "delusions" together implies that the delusion is not a delusion, because a delusion is categorized as an idea that is not shared by the person's culture or subculture. To quote a study in the article, "the internet may enable complex support mechanisms without reference to a view of reality held by the authorities or even the mainstream of opinion." Yet, the mainstream reality and TI's beliefs have never been closer together as the TIs have more and more things in mainstream reality to point to (FBI's COINTELPRO, CIA's MKUltra, popular films and TV, etc.). More inside the link.

"We’ve created a robotics system, trained entirely in simulation and deployed on a physical robot, which can learn a new task after seeing it done once." Do the thing in VR, the robot does it in reality. Pretty awesome - and the beginning of telepresence military robots from the safety of your own home with an Oculus Touch controller. What? I'm not envisioning dystopia, you're envisioning dystopia! (OK, also, very cool precision medical experiments, manufacturing work, etc.)

As a counterpoint to my complete cynicism, here's an interesting article describing how shitty the robots currently are--and yet, how we will need to adopt in an increasingly knowledge-based workforce.

Good news, everyone! Infinite universes probably exist! That means that you may, in fact, never die and instead switch into parallel universes and this happens to be the universe that you attain immortality within via technological singularity. I mean, hey, you have no idea of knowing if that's not the case, so just take it. San Junipero, here I come!

Did you know that fonts can be racist? OK, clarification - they can be used by racists and nazis et al. Here's an interesting read into the psychological power of typography as well as its spread through culture.

On the one hand, my sentiment is a very much incredulous "can you believe this shit?" at the fact that WeRateDogs makes over $1,000 per month, essentially for just reposting other people's content and doing dog-related merchandise, and then furious jealousy, and then complete awareness of the hypocritical fact that that's pretty much exactly what I do. Good job, Matt Nelson. Yor a good doggo.

This company wants to raise chickens in virtual reality. Yes, literally. Hey guys, why not just like, use that money on giving chickens a decent life instead of creating an animal dystopia? This one would do George Orwell proud.

Way's Notes

Hey!

Happy Memorial Day from the U.S. (which is why this is here on Tuesday instead of lovely Monday). Hope things are going well with you! Not a ton to report, just life as usual and trying to keep up without getting down--but still getting down occasionally, with the funk. (OK, more like the house music but y'know.) I missed you--it's been a long weekend.

Interested in putting your money where your Glitchet is? You can support Glitchet with a monthly subscription on Patreon, or a one-time payment via PayPal.

Money for Glitchet goes into paying for server costs, spending more time developing it, and telling it you love it.

Alternatively, if cryptocurrency is more your bag, you can send me meager amounts of cyber money at these wallet addresses:

Bitcoin: 141xzEcXzPtyW45F4tW7tmmJw6LwBrnonD

Bitcoin Cash: 1PjTR8SSbaFpJiJneYkya3KxpDiou6Ty7A

Ethereum: 0x7Cc1aCa2997D9613165b7D398CC6186042672a14

Litecoin: LSLeiZxrymuSXMrZFWLJ43RSxTTdLctGe1

Dogecoin: DJBpHsS2tnwtcQHDYMT8jdfwHhKCXUptyT

END TRANSMISSION

Get hand-picked cutting edge technology articles in robotics, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and more with fantastic glitch / generative / futuristic art delivered to your inbox every Monday. Not sure? Check out past articles and see if it's for you.